Tips for Packing Up Your Classroom Quickly and Efficiently

The time has (finally) come:  its classroom packing time.  But how can you get everything stored away for the summer without spending your entire summer doing it?  Here are a few of our best teacher-suggested tips:

  1. Pack in Zones: Pack everything that goes in your desk in one box, everything that goes on the bookshelf in one box and everything that goes in your technology center in one box.  Seems like a simple concept, but a lot of exhausted teachers just toss everything into boxes and end up with a huge organizational milestone when back-to-school hits.
  2. Plan Ahead:  Set aside all of the things you’ll need first when school starts again—scissors, your stapler, your computer password—and put them into a box.  Place that box in an easy-to-find spot so you’ll see it first thing when you come back to school.
  3. Really Plan Ahead:  If you’re really on top of it, put copies of all of the worksheets, papers and lesson plans you’ll use during the first week of school into a binder and put them in your aforementioned box.
  4. Save Your Kid’s Work:  Don’t toss the art projects and reports that your students leave behind.  Instead, save them in a big box and you’ll have built-in decorations and examples for next year.
  5. Toss What you Don’t Use:  Don’t be afraid to toss or donate old projects, old lessons or old books that you don’t use anymore.  A cluttered classroom is a disorganized classroom.
  6. Get the Appropriate Storage Containers:  Invest in a poster storage box or a sentence strip box so that you can be assured that your stuff will be safe over the summer.
  7. Get Your Students Involved:  See if a couple of your students will stay in afterschool to help you pack (treat them to pizza or a popsicle if they do!) and you’ll not only have some last-minute bonding time with students, but get packed a lot faster.
  8. Get things fixed now:  If something is broken or not working, send a work-order to your summer maintenance staff now.  It may seem easier to put it off until later, but come August, you’ll appreciate the fact that everything in your classroom is in working order.

Skills of Teaching

Teaching is a profession which can provide great reward to those who choose to pursue it – that is to say it can provide personal, financial and professional reward…

However, like all rewarding activity, to take benefit, one must invest. In this case, the investment does not refer to the financial sort, but the personal sort. In order to be a successful, accomplished and rewarded teacher, one must demonstrate dedication to the cause.

A good teacher has ambition, not just for oneself but for their class and more specifically, every individual student. A good teacher will make that the classroom is a place for the ambition to thrive – through encouragement, creativity, sensitivity and motivation. These attitudes are fundamental for success. Even in the face of difficulty, a teacher must be prepared to take the initiative, to reinstate energy in the classroom and assure that each student is happily reaching his/her full potential.

For many students, a teacher is a role model – a fact which highlights the need for personal strength and resistance to vice, especially for those teaching impressionable young children. The teacher, as well as providing an academic education, should also be the provider of a good moral example for his/her students to follow, demonstrating the advantages of honest and conscientious living.

An effective teacher should not be afraid to assert their authority. When teaching a numerous class, one of the teacher’s principle responsibilities is to ensure a working environment is maintained. Should a teacher fail to act should this environment be disrupted, he/she would not be fulfilling their role as the class authoritarian and consequently be failing to assume the responsibility for class achievement.

With respect to education, nothing is more effective for animating the mind than a passion for what is being taught. The passion and energy of a teacher for their subject is diffused amongst the students who will come to realise, although they may be facing challenges, that hard work is beneficial.

Teacher is an immensely enjoyable career, offering a great variety of challenges and opportunities for learning. By employing the skills discussed here whilst teaching, one can ensure that they are doing an exceptional job and for this, will be duly rewarded.

You’re a teacher, What do you make???

In a dinner Party guests were sitting around the table discussing life.

One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, “What’s a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?”

To stress his point he said to another guest; “You’re a teacher, Barbara. Be honest. What do you make?”

Barbara, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, “You want to know what I make? (She paused for a second, and then began…)

“Well, I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.

I make a C+ feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor winner.

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents
CAN’T make them sit for 5 without an I Pod, Game Cube or movie rental.

You want to know what I make? (She paused again and looked at each and every person at the table)

I make kids wonder.

I make them question.

I make them apologize and mean it.

I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.

I teach them to write and then I make them write. Keyboarding ISN’T EVERYTHING.

I make them read, read, read.

I make them show all their work in maths. They use their God given brain, not the man-made calculator.

I make my students from other countries learn everything they need to know about English while preserving their unique cultural identity.

I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe.

Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life (Barbara paused one last time and then continued.)

Then, when people try to judge me by what I make, with me knowing money
isn’t everything, I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant.

You want to know what I make?

I MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

What do you make Mr. CEO?

His jaw dropped, he went silent.

A profound answer !!!